


kaleidoscope

by antaam



Series: Sylvix Fics [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-14
Updated: 2020-01-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:40:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22258120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antaam/pseuds/antaam
Summary: There was a reason, she explained, that she sent students from the infirmary with ice for bruises and bandages for scrapes, that she didn't heal away illnesses but provided medicines instead. Because if the body could heal without magic, the bodyshouldheal without magic--not allowed to mend itself, it would simply forgethow. Over exposure to Faith magic led to thin skin and brittle bones, to muscles that tore and struggled to heal over and grow, to injuries that appeared faster and healed slower.This was especially true of children.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: Sylvix Fics [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1602259
Comments: 5
Kudos: 238





	kaleidoscope

**Author's Note:**

> real life medicine is good and should be utilized this is just a gratuitous hurt/comfort interpretation of faith magic thank you. from [this prompt](https://prompts.neocities.org/) generator with the prompt "felix kisses sylvain on a freshly formed bruise"

Sylvain bruises easily.

For a long time, Felix never noticed, not because Sylvain was unbruised as a child, but because all of Sylvain’s childhood bruises were put there with intent. By Miklan, by his father, by school teachers and nursemaids trying to wrangle him into a child befitting the Gautier name. He’s not sure it counted as bruising _easily_ when people were _trying_ to hurt you.

He might’ve noticed later, at the academy and during the war, when a rigid training schedule and near constant battle could only account for some of the injuries Sylvain gathered in dark splothches on his skin. But everyone was injured in some way or another in those times, and with Sylvain’s revolving door of bedroom guests leaving him with hickies on his neck and scratches down his back, it was easy to write off a little extra bruising as being just another result of Sylvain’s more unsavory habits.

It’s only after the fighting, after the War of Unification has ended and the Treaty of Sreng has been signed that Felix finally has no excuse _not_ to notice.

Because despite spending most of his days behind a desk or at meetings about policy and reform, despite Felix being the only one to warm his bed and knowing exactly where he left marks, Sylvain still rides into Fraldarius with smears of purple on his shins, his knuckles, his elbows. There’s no reason he should be so injured during peacetimes, no reason Felix should find a new bruise every time he catches sight of Sylvain at a different angle, and it leaves a sour taste on his tongue.

He doesn’t believe Sylvain at first, his assurances of _I bumped against a table_ and _I closed my finger in my desk drawer_ because he’s _heard_ them before, lies and excuses from a hollow-eyed child. He’d believed them then, foolish child that he was, and he doesn’t intend to make the same mistake again.

Except- Sylvain’s smiles aren’t shadowed when he tells Felix the crescent shaped mark on his forehead was from dropping a bookend on himself when he was reorganizinghis study. His laugh is genuine when Felix pauses their heavy petting to fret over a bruise on his hip Sylvain insists was from bumping a door closed when his hands were otherwise occupied. 

Felix likes to think he knows Sylvain, by now, and Sylvain doesn’t _seem_ like he’s lying, but he doesn’t _really_ believe him until he sees it for himself.

Sylvain is in Fraldarius, as he often is, on political business that’s half-bullshit and definitely doesn’t require the presence of the Margrave himself. The _business_ amounts to a single meeting on the day of his arrival that runs as long as it does only because Sylvain keeps interrupting talks with his flirting, and after, leaves the both of them free for the rest of his week long stay. 

Felix has every intention of spending their time together simply going about his dukely duties as normal, with the exception of Sylvain _being_ there. Despite Sylvain always wanting to do something _special_ , Felix privately revelled in the fantasy that this was normal, that Sylvain lived here, with him, and this was their every day. He’ll never admit it, and he’s rather easily swayed into picnics and long mornings spent with Sylvain’s head pillowed on his lap as he reads, but those average days with Sylvain simply being present were what he looked forward to most.

What he ends up getting, though, is Sylvain following him into his office to distract him from his paperwork and, upon seeing the chaos that has overtaken it, announcing that they’re going to spend the day cleaning, instead.

“You don’t have to help, you know,” Sylvain says when Felix grumbles about it, and Felix knows he gets some kind of peace out of cleaning and organizing, that this offer isn’t born solely of his martyr complex, but it would still feel wrong to sit and pour over letters and missives while Sylvain cleaned up after him.

“It’s fine,” Felix replies, “More urgent than Gloucester’s latest complaints, anyway.”

Sylvain laughs at that, warm and indulgent, and Felix is taken with the domesticity of it all, having Sylvain here organizing his office in trousers and a loose linen shirt, looking every bit like he belongs. Not wanting to dwell on that idea should his thoughts show on his face, he turns and marches across the room to the furthest stack of books and papers to busy himself with sorting through it.

They work in relative silence, broken occasionally by Sylvain’s musings about the happenings in Gautier, or Sylvain asking whether a document needed to be saved or thrown away. It’s peaceful. It’s _nice._ Felix hates cleaning but like most things, it’s not so bad when Sylvain is there.

His mistake, ultimately, is forgetting how quietly he moves. It’s a skill he developed during the war, one that didn’t have uses outside of stealth combat but was stubbornly hard to shake. All he _means_ to do is offer Sylvain a book that he’d left off the shelf weeks ago having thought it’d be something Sylvain might like to borrow on his next visit, but when he says, “Hey,” Sylvain whirls around, startled by Felix’s sudden approach, and smacks his cheek on the book’s sharp corner.

“Shit,” Felix says, dropping the book with little care as Sylvain flinches back, “Sorry, are you-”

The words die in his throat because Felix watches, wide eyed, as a long, thin bruise blooms over Sylvain’s cheekbone, much too fast to be natural. 

And, really, Felix should have realized--it’s obvious, in fact, now that he’s watching it happen.

“Oh,” he says.

Because Felix hadn’t learned much about Faith magic in the academy, only taking the basic courses with the rest of the class at Byleth’s insistence, but what he had learned, what he had remembered despite many details of his schooling fading with time, was that it came with a price.

The first day of class, before anyone was even allowed to so much as look at the textbooks Manuela had stacked haphazardly on her desk, she had drilled into them that healing was only _ever_ to be used when necessary, when medicine couldn't help or a life was on the line. She had never been known to be a strict professor, but for this, she made an exception, forcing every student to repeat her talking points back to her like a mantra. 

There was a reason, she explained, that she sent students from the infirmary with ice for bruises and bandages for scrapes, that she didn't heal away illness but provided medicines instead. Because if the body could heal without magic, the body _should_ heal without magic--not allowed to mend itself, it would simply forget _how_. Over exposure to Faith magic led to thin skin and brittle bones, to muscles that tore and struggled to heal over and grow, to injuries that appeared faster and healed slower.

This was especially true of children.

Felix thinks of Miklan, thinks of the horrors Sylvain had confided in him over the years, horrors he’d never seen a trace of despite how they should have scarred. 

“Oh,” he says again. Softer, more fragile.

Sylvain reaches up, catches his hand in his and Felix is suddenly aware of the fragility of it, of skin like paper and bones like glass. His stomach sinks. It’s a miracle, he realizes, that Sylvain survived the war at all with a body so easily broken. His hand trembles.

“Felix,” Sylvain says, and when Felix reluctantly meets his eyes they’re soft and sad, and, oh, Sylvain knows, too. Sylvain knows that _Felix_ knows.

“I’m okay,” he says, firm and certain. Years ago, the words might have been a lie, a bandage laid over festering wounds. Here, now, there is only truth in them.

And Felix believes him, he _does_ , but stone in his stomach doesn’t grow lighter, not when evidence of the times Sylvain _wasn’t_ is written into his body, his blood, his _being._ It aches in his chest, and he lifts his free hand to cup Sylvain’s injured cheek, desperate for contact. Sylvain leans into the touch, warm and solid and _here_ despite it all.

Felix lets his hand slip down to Sylvain’s jaw and leans down to follow it, lets his lips brush over the bruise like he could kiss it away. Sylvain’s breath hitches, fingers tightening around Felix’s and his whole body winding up tight as a bowstring. He doesn’t move, though, doesn’t make a sound, just lets Felix’s lips linger sweetly on his slowly heating skin, soaking in the warmth of him, the _life_ of him, soothing away the pain with gentle affection.

It’s silly and pointless, but he does it anyway.

After a long moment, Felix says, “Okay,” breathes it soft against Sylvain’s cheek. He pulls away only far enough to dip his head lower and press his forehead against the broad expanse of Sylvain’s shoulder, “Okay. You’re okay.”

Sylvain hums, indulgent, and the tension seeps out of him with the sound. He relaxes into Felix’s arms, lifts a hand to comb it into Felix’s hair and tilts his head to press a kiss just behind Felix’s ear. “Thank you,” he says, though Felix hasn’t done anything.

Felix huffs and hooks an arm around his back to squeeze him closer, to feel him alive and breathing against him. Sylvain makes a soft sound and Felix nearly recoils, thinking he’d squeezed too hard, but Sylvain pulls him stubbornly closer, says, “Don’t let go,” so Felix doesn’t.

He’s not sure how long they sit like that, basking in each other, but eventually his back begins to ache from the awkward angle he’s stooped at. Sylvain must notice because he takes it on himself to be the one to break the moment, knowing Felix might refuse to do it himself. 

“I’ve got more where that came from,” he murmurs against Felix’s hair, “Do they get the same treatment?”

Felix, older now and harder to fluster, sits up a bit to consider his partner. “Sure,” he says. Simple. Easy. 

Maybe his cheeks are warm, but the way Sylvain flushes as red as his hair is worth it ten times over.

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be part of a series of sylvain/sylvix centered short fics using a prompt generator but i do also take suggestions on [my cc](http://curiouscat.me/kamaevis)


End file.
